German fund manager has bought into a speculative development project in Paris.
It has bought the 23,600sqm Grand Central development at Saint-Lazare station for its open-ended real estate fund UniImmo Deutschland.
The project is being managed by US private-equity investor The Carlyle Group, which plans to build a business centre on Europeβs second biggest railway station in Europe.
Completion of the project, which began in 2013 and is desgined Jacques Ferrier Architecture, is expected by the middle of 2019.
βGrand Central will be one of the most modern business centres in Paris,β said Tania Bontemps, president of Real Estate France.
βIt benefits from a location that is unsurpassed in terms of transport links.
βDue to the excellent letting prospects and our confidence in the project, we decided on a speculative acquisition without pre-letting and rent guarantees.β
Philip La Pierre, head of Investment Management Europe at Union Investment Real Estate, said: βInvestment opportunities in the Paris real estate market are currently rather rare.
βGrand Central is one of the few commercial new build projects in the city. This development project is our first acquisition in the Γle-de-France since 2012.β
